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A Visualization: How to Choose Healing and Growth

Posted on May 27, 2017 - by Catherine McNulty

If you find yourself here, it’s likely because you’ve recently experienced the death of someone you love. You may have had time to prepare, or the death may have come suddenly. Either way, the expectations you had for your life and your future were thwarted; taken from you without warning. And as devastating as loss can be, opportunities will arise for you to choose to continue focusing on your sadness or to choose to shift your focus toward healing and self-growth. It is choosing a mindset that is specifically focused on overcoming grief and grieving. That mindset is that grief […]

Suzy Miller: Donate Life America

Posted on May 24, 2017 - by Gloria Horsley

Suzy Miller of Donate Life America spoke with Dr. Gloria Horsley at the 2015 Association for Death Education and Counseling Conference about the many benefits of becoming a donor. A leading tissue, eye and organ donation organization, Donate Life America is one of the most well-established donor organizations in the country. “A very good friend of mine…received a heart transplant,” Miller shares with Dr. Horsley. That transplant saved her life. It’s what allowed her to see her daughter graduate from high school, get married and even allowed her to live to have grandchildren. Miller knows that it was the selfless […]

Becoming Aware of God’s Presence

Posted on May 23, 2017 - by Charles W. Sidoti

“We have what we seek. We don’t have to rush after it. It was there all the time. If we give it time it will make itself known to us.” – Thomas Merton As a young child I remember a picture hanging on the wall in my grandfather’s house. It showed Jesus standing outside a door and patiently knocking upon it. This picture is often accompanied by a caption taken from Sacred Scripture, “Behold I stand at the door and knock…” (Revelation 3:20). I realized at that time that the closed door represented the door to my life, the door to my heart. I knew […]

What Makes Sudden Death So Different?

Posted on May 22, 2017 - by Michelle Jarvie

It’s not just that we “didn’t get to say goodbye.” That common phrase, often associated with sudden death, is far too simplistic when unpacking the reality of completely unexpected deaths: accidents, homicides, suicides, sudden natural causes (e.g. heart attack, brain hemorrhage) and serious illnesses where death is unforeseen (e.g. epilepsy). SHOCK The scientific community explains that if our bodies did not go into shock as we face our new reality, the tragedy would overwhelm our system to such an extent that we would die. In this way, the shock reaction – numbness, fog, autopilot – protects us. However, it can […]

So Much More than 5 Stages of Grief

Posted on May 21, 2017 - by Megan Aronson

Please, right this very moment, if you are reading this trying to figure out where the catastrophe of your grief fits in a little box, STOP. The truth is, there are no five stages. Or ten, or twenty, or ninety-five. There is no one way to grieve, only your way. There may be characteristic emotional experiences such as anger, denial, bargaining, depression and acceptance, but there is far more to the experience of grief than just those five pieces. Could you categorize a wave in five stages? Maybe. Rise, break, crash, fall, recede. Sounds a lot like the experience of […]

Webinar: Survival Tips for Mother’s Day

Posted on May 8, 2017 - by Darcie Sims

There are many holidays which can be particularly tough for the bereaved, and Mother’s Day is a big one. Can you celebrate Mother’s Day if your child is no longer living? Of course you can, but you may benefit from some modifications. The Open to Hope show welcomes Dr. Darcie Sims, an internationally renowned speaker specializing in grief management. She’s the founder and president of Grief, Inc., a licensed psychotherapist, and the author of several books. “Am I still a mother?” is a question many bereaved mothers ask themselves, and according to Dr. Sims the resounding answer is, “Yes!” However, […]

An Absent Connection: Eight Years After a Child-Loss

Posted on May 4, 2017 - by Bart Sumner

This October it will be 8 years since my 10-year-old son David was tripped up during a football practice, and suffered an acute subdural hematoma which took him forever from our lives. He is always in my thoughts. Every day his smile and love runs through my day. Every benchmark of growing up his little sister Abby, now 15, takes reminds me he is not here. I don’t cry about it most days, I have long since come to terms with the incredible sadness and integrated it into who I am now, but he is always right there, peeking through, […]

The Switch Stays On: Attachment After a Loss

Posted on May 3, 2017 - by Greg Adams

How we start out in life has consequences for the rest of our lives. The connections we make, or don’t make, to whoever parents us, sets the stage for all our future relationships. The more our parents are dependable, nurturing and sensitive to our needs, the more we are set up to be part of dependable, nurturing and sensitive relationships throughout life. If our parenting is erratic, lacking in nurture, or insensitive to our needs, our future relationships can be filled with anxiety, expecting or fearing to be let down again, or we may avoid closeness in relationships as we […]

Video: Supporting Cops and their Families in Grief

Posted on May 1, 2017 - by Dr. Gloria and Dr. Heidi Horsley

Drs. Gloria and Heidi Horsley talk to the Dennis Jones, the Executive Director of Concerns of Police Survivors (COPS) in the 44th episode of The Open to Hope Foundation show. They also discuss this issue with Anthony (Babe) Muro, who’s an avid supporter of the police community. COPS is committed to helping families and individuals of loved ones who have fallen in the line of duty. Gloria’s father was a policeman and a military member, so she has always had a soft spot for police departments. Jones is a former police officer of the NYPD for 25 years, and after […]

Getting Back to Life When Grief Won’t Heal

Posted on April 26, 2017 - by Gloria Horsley

Dr. Gloria Horsley talks with Dr. Phyllis Kosminsky, the author of Getting Back to Life When Grief Won’t Heal. Dr. Kosminsky says, “I wrote it because people were coming in and asking me if they were grieving in the right way.”. There are many stages of grief, and that’s talked about in depth, but it can be confusing. People in grief will look at stages and see them as consecutive, but that’s not the case. This can be particularly frustrating in the second year when you think you “should” be progressing, but suddenly find yourself back in an early stage. […]